Manmade Fiber Industry Hit Hard with Profits Fallout by 75%

Apr 27, 2020 ｜ by zhaoh

Man-made fiber industry stands way upfront in the supply chain and its rise and fall considerably depends on the midstream and downstream production that is subject to the consumption market after all. China’s retails in January and February fell by 30.9% in shop sales for the category of garment, shoes, caps (hats) and knitwear. The brick-and-mortar sales weakness did not necessarily in turn divert the trade flow to the e-commerce retail which also met a 16.1% drop in wearable goods online, this shock ripples nearly all the manmade fiber related products like cotton blended yarn, chemical fiber yarn, cotton blend fabric, the fabric made of manmade fiber staple, nonwoven, tire cord fabric , all encountered fallouts respectively by 42%, 29.46%,52.37%,22.96%, 11.02% and 4.14%. The export shrinkage for all the textiles and apparel in the country in the beginning two months that saw 20% down also has much impact on the manmade fiber industry.

Production:

The national stats show an obvious drop of man-made fiber production by 13.64% to turn out 7.2723 million tons in January and February with the breakdowns in viscous staple for 448,300 tons, a drop by 33.71%, PET fiber for 5.5889 million tons, a decrease by 11.92%, polyamide fiber(Nylon) for 508,600 tons, a fallout by 27.11%, and polyurethane fiber(Spandex) for 122,300 tons, up by 4.18% as a result of rising market demand for coarse-denier Spandex for the ear-loop of face masks.

International Trade:

The import and export of manmade fibers both encountered slidedown with exception of a few product lines. As the data from Chinese Customs show, the first two months of the year witnessed 114.500 tons in importation, down by 17.2% which reflected a different scaledown in important products like PET staple for 25,400 tons and PET filament for 15,000 tons, both fell respectively by 8.59% and 6.85%. To be more specific, polyamide filament registered an import of only 9600 tons, a freefall by 34.27%, and viscous staple by 27.46% for 25,700 tons.

On the export side, China shipped out 638,800 tons of manmade fibers in January and February that saw a descent by12.33%, more specifically, PET staple for 109,900 tons, a 24.11% sliding down, and PET filament for 366,900 tons, 14.06% less than the previous growth in the same period last year. The shadowy picture is also seen in the export of polyamide filament for 39,800 tons with 4.41% drop, but in the viscous filament and polyurethane fiber, both enjoyed growth up by 20.36% and 9.69%, respectively.

Investment in fixed assets

The investment plummeted by 35.7% in the first two months of this year, 31.9 percentage points lower than the corresponding months last year because some big projects under construction were called to a halt in case of coronavirus spreading.

Economic Profit and Loss

According to the data from National Bureau of Statistics, the man-made fiber industry slided down with a freefall by 74.78% in profits of 397 million Yuan, its important sectors like PET fiber down by 132.01% and polyamide fiber(Nylon) down by 15.64% in profits on balance sheet report. The number of companies running in red accounts for 48.7% of the total man-made fiber companies eligible in the national statistics system with the loss of money up by 39.49%.

With the sharp fall of profits, the profit/sales rate is reduced to a poor 0.48% as the sales income itself ran into a predicament with a significant fall by 28.39% to finish with 83.584 billion Yuan in the troubled two months.